
A STORY OF POLITICS IN 1924 


[By CYRENUS COLE / 


"A GOVERNMENT OF COMMON SENSE” 

‘‘We are likely to hear a great deal of discussion about 
liberal thought and progressive action. It is well for the 
country to have liberality in thought and progress in action, 
but its greatest asset is common sense. 

“The people know the difference between pretense and 
reality. They want to be told the truth. They want to be 
trusted. They want a chance to work out their own material 
and spiritual salvation. 

“The people want a government of common sense.” — Hon. 
Calvin Coolidge, in speech of Acceptance. 


"A CAMPAIGN OF BRASS TACKS ” 

“This campaign is a campaign of domestic issues. . . . 

“Political issues in the United States have become too 
serious to trifle with, and the citizens realize it. 

“The discussion of facts and truth is demanded. . . . 

“This is a campaign of brass-tacks — not bombast.” — Hon. 
Chas. G. Dawes , in speech of Acceptance. 


CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA 
THE TORCH PRESS 
19 2 4 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


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Back to Four Corners 


















































Compliments of the 
Republican National Committee 

PUNGENT PARAGRAPHS FROM CALVIN COOL- 
IDGE’S RECENT SPEECHES 

To Save America 

“The time for Americans to range themselves firmly, squarely, 
and uncompromisingly behind American ideals is now. 

“The great body of our people have an abiding faith in their 
own country. The time has come when they should supplement 
that faith with action. 

“The question is whether America will allow itself to be 
degraded into a communistic and socialistic state, or whether it will 
remain American. 

“Those who want to continue to enjoy the high estate of Amer¬ 
ican citizenship will resist all attempts to encroach upon their 
liberties by encroaching upon the power of the courts. 

“The time to stop those who would loosen and weaken the fabric 
of our government is before they begin.” 

To Help Save the World 

“To continue to be independent we must continue to be whole¬ 
heartedly American. . . . We cannot become the partisans of 

one nation or the opponents of another. 

“The course of our country in recent years has been an example 
of these principles. We are still pursuing that course. It has been 
a practical course and it has secured practical results. One of the 
most important results is found in the disarmament treaties, which 
have saved our own country to date about three hundred millions 
of dollars, and likewise relieved other nations. 

“Another important result has been the adoption of the Dawes 
plan for the settlement of reparations. 

“The effect these two results will have in averting war and pro¬ 
moting peace cannot possibly be overestimated. They stand out as 
great monuments, truly directing the course of men along the way 
to more civilization, more enlightenment, and more righteousness. 

“They appear to me properly to^mark the end of the old order 
and the beginning of a new era.” '©C1A800976 


■ C \<y ^ 


Copyright, 1924, by 
Cyrenus Cole 


SEP 22 *24 




THE TORCH PRESS 
CEDAR RAPIDS 
IOWA 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


CHAPTER I 

Watson Comes West Again 

“Here is good news, Dad, Watson is coming out to make us 
another visit — he’s coming direct from the great political con¬ 
ventions and notifications to tell us all about them.” 

“Good for Watson,” said the father. 

“Good for all of us,” said the son. 

The father and the son speaking in this dialogue are Mark Mil¬ 
ler, Sr., and Mark Miller, Jr. The father is a retired farmer 
living in the town of Storm Lake, Iowa, and the son is living on 
the old home farm at what is called Four Corners, a pretty cross¬ 
roads not far from the lake town. 

Clarence Watson is a Washington newspaper man, with whom 
Mark Miller, Jr., became acquainted in France, while they were 
both serving in the World War, and their friendship was 
cemented in Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, where they both 
underwent repairs.* 

“Is Dorothy coming with him?” asked Mrs. Miller, Sr., join¬ 
ing in the conversation. 

“Yes, he is bringing his wife and both children,” replied the son, 
re-reading the letter. 

“That will be nice for Mary and for little Mary.” 

Mary, it may be explained, is the wife of Mark Miller, Jr., and 
“little Mary” is their daughter, known as Mary, Jr. Young Mil¬ 
ler met his future wife in the Washington hospital, where she 
served as a nurse. Dorothy is Mary’s cousin. She was a “war 
widow,” with one child, Dorothy, Jr., so called, when Clarence 
Watson met her and was married with her during a previous visit 
in Iowa. 

* The Millers and the Watsons were the principal characters in a political story, 
entitled From, Four Corners to Washington, published in 1920, and in a second story, 
published in 1922, entitled, From Washington to Four Corners. In these booklets the 
issues of the political campaigns of 1920 and 1922 were set forth and discussed as will 
be the issues of this campaign of 1924 in this. In these booklets the story form is 
employed to add human interest, but the facts and figures used are all officially 
correct. 




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“From what Watson writes us,” said the son to his mother, 
“Dorothy, Jr., must be quite the smartest little girl in Washington, 
and as for the new baby, whom they call Clarence, Jr., although 
only past his first year, he must be as wise and talkative as his 
father, judging him by what his fond father writes about him.” 

“They’re all smart enough,” remarked the father; “and may I 
suggest that while you are so busy still on the farm, they stay with 
us here in town — we can drive them out every day so that you 
will get to see plenty of them.” 

“Yes, do let them stay with us,” added the mother. “We have 
plenty of room for them, and then Mary will not be bothered with 
a house full.” 

“With threshing coming on,” suggested the father. 

“Bothered, nothing,” said the Lieutenant — the son is still called 
Lieutenant, habitually — “we both want to be bothered that way. 
We will want all four of them with us and that all the time, 
threshing or no threshing.” 

“But there are a lot of things I want to talk over with Watson,” 
insisted the father, “and I am thinking I can’t do it, with him on 
the farm while I am here.” 

“But I want to hear him talk, too,” replied the Lieutenant, “and 
it is more convenient for you to spend your time on the farm than 
for me to be in town. I want to hear all that Watson can tell us 
about what has been going on in the nation — he knows the whole 
game of politics.” 

“And he knows how to tell the truth about things,” said the 
father. “That’s what we want now, ‘brass-tacks — and not bom¬ 
bast,’ as Mr. Dawes puts it.” 

“Well, if you want to hear the truth told by a man who is not 
afraid to tell it, you’ll have to come out to the farm, for that is 
where the Watsons, the whole kit and crew of them, will be found, 
and I hope they can stay with us a month. And, besides, I’m sure 
they want to be out on the farm. They have seen enough of 
towns.” 

“All right, have your way about it,” said the father. “But you 
will find you have me on your hands most of the time during their 
visit.” 

“And to have you with us, and mother too,” said the Lieutenant, 
“is always the greatest pleasure we have on the old farm. With¬ 
out you dropping in on us would be for us like dropping out of 
the world.” 


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CHAPTER II 

The Arrival oe the Watsons 

Early the next morning all the Millers, the father and mother, 
the Lieutenant and Mary, Sr., and Mary, Jr., were at the railroad 
station to meet all the Watsons. It was a reunion extraordinary. 

“We are delighted!” shouted the Lieutenant. 

“Bully, old pal,” said Watson, beaming. 

What the women and children said and did, must be left to the 
imagination. 

They all had breakfast at the Miller town house, a pretty cottage 
overlooking the fine little lake. 

After the breakfast the women chatted in the house, while the 
children chattered on the lawn. 

But the men, sitting on the porch, were immediately immersed 
in politics. 

“The conventions,” said Watson, “well, they are now old stories. 
We have since had the ratifications and notifications which have 
brought things up to date. But it is not too old to say of the 
Cleveland republican convention that it was to me the most not¬ 
able American gathering I have ever attended. It was so typically 
American. Many times I walked up and down the center aisle of 
that magnificent convention hall just to see the people who were 
there, men and women, and every time I did so I felt a new pride 
in the manhood and the womanhood of America as expressed in 
that gathering.” 

“But what about the New York gathering of democrats?” asked 
the Lieutenant. “You were there too?” 

“Well, it was representative too,” said Watson. “It was typical 
in another way. It was the expression of the contentions and con¬ 
fusions that have come into part of our American politics. The 
democrats had to fight it out among themselves and as you know 
it was a fierce fight and a prolonged one. They tried to get 
together and failing to do that entirely, they named two men as 
far apart as are the two poles of the earth.” 

“Coolidge and Dawes are certainly a better matched team, as 
we farmers say,” said Mr. Miller, “than Davis and Bryan — how 
they are going to keep them in the harness together puzzles me.” 

“It is puzzling them too,” said Watson. “So far Mr. Davis has 
made the most concessions. Naturally a conservative, he is trying 
to talk like a radical, and the opinion is general that he is not doing 
it very well. He is losing himself without finding the other fellow. 


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But that is their affair. As a republican I feel that Coolidge and 
Dawes make one of the best balanced tickets that the republican 
party has presented to the people since its organization.” 

“It strikes us all,” said Mr. Miller, “as a real American ticket.” 

“They are both men in the prime of life,” added Watson. “Both 
are admirably equipped for the public service. They are men who 
have already made records in the affairs of the nation. Their 
views are known. They are sound and sane and have the con¬ 
fidence of the people as a whole and that without regard to party. 
Their election will constitute a distinct new era in American 
politics.” 

“It won’t be all political either,” said Mr. Miller. 

“It will not be ordinary politics at all,” said Watson. “It will be 
good and orderly government, the kind which has made America 
great. And it will be prosperity, work, business, going ahead 
again. The country is ready for such a new regime. It is ready 
for a great revival of prosperity and what Mr. Coolidge in his 
speech of acceptance has just termed so happily, common sense.” 

“If the people can only see it in that light,” said Mr. Miller, 
“how fortunate it will be for all.” 

“They are beginning to see it in that light,” Watson assured 
him. “The reports that are coming from all parts of the country 
indicate the return to common sense, and I am going to predict 
a big victory for Coolidge and Dawes and I do it right now and 
here. The people are thinking along such lines and their hopes 
are set on it. There has been some confused thinking and there 
is still come confusion. But before the November elections they 
will have come to the right conclusions.” 

“They generally have come through all right, after thinking it 
over,” admitted Mr. Miller. 

“This is one of the super years,” said Watson. “America is on 
trial. I believe the people will be minded to set their national house 
in order and with Coolidge and Dawes to go ahead like Americans. 
They are going to do it.” 


CHAPTER III 

They Talk About the East Congress 

Shortly after the first breakfast, loaded in two automobiles, the 
Millers and Watsons motored to the farm at Four Corners. 

“What puzzled me most two years ago when I was here,” said 


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7 


Watson as they approached the place, “was that Four Corners 
was just a place where two roads cross.” 

“Naturally, that makes four corners,” said the Lieutenant. “We 
live in one of the corners, and the others are empty, as you see, 
except for good crops.” 

“What I want our neighbors to do,” said Mary, “is to build 
their homes in those empty corners and then we would have a sort 
of community life here in the country.” 

“And then with paved roads,” said Watson, “you would have a 
sort of rural paradise here in Iowa. My! look at this country,” 
he added. “How beautiful it is for sore eyes from the cities! 
What is so good to look at must be good to live in!” 

“But we can not live in it by looking at it,” the Lieutenant 
warned him. “We have to work in it and after we have worked 
we must have prices for our products for we have to pay our bills 
and our taxes. That is where our problems begin nowadays.” 

“I know it,” admitted Watson, “and before I return I want to 
get your viewpoint here as well as give you our viewpoint. When 
I go back to Washington I want to know more about everything 
than some writing men do.” 

When they had looked things over on the farm and were seated 
under the trees, Mr. Miller quickly again turned the talk to things 
political. “Tell me,” he said, “what was the matter in the last 
session of the congress? Why did they not do more and agree 
better with the president — out here we thought it a do-nothing 
congress.” 

“You thought of it that way,” replied Watson, “because you did 
not understand fully the internal situation there. You assumed, 
first of all, that we had a republican congress and that it ought to 
have worked with President Coolidge.” 

“Well, wasn’t it republican?” asked Mr. Miller. 

“Not quite,” said Watson, smiling. “In the house the repub¬ 
licans had. nominally 225 members, which is a majority of the 435 
members making up that body. But of these hardly as many as 
208 were really and fully republicans. The others were called 
‘insurgents/ while the democrats had about 207, nearly all dem¬ 
ocratic enough to act with their own party all the time.” 

“And the twenty ‘insurgents,’ as you call them, who were they 
and why didn’t they act with their party?” asked Mr. Miller. 

“Eleven of them were from Wisconsin, including Victor Berger, 
who generally voted with them. Berger is the lone real socialist in 
the house. Acting with these Wisconsin, or La Follette ‘repub- 


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licans/ as they were sometimes called, were seven or eight from 
other states. In the senate the situation was of a like kind. Nom¬ 
inally, the republicans had a majority of about three, but there 
were always more than three who were ready to leave their party. 
They were called, sometimes, the La Follette senators.” 

These men in both the house and senate played between the 
lines,” suggested the Lieutenant. 

“That is exactly what they did,” said Watson. “The result was 
that the republicans who were supposed to be and who were 
assumed to be in control of the congress, could not carry out their 
policies. On every vital question they had to compromise with the 
insurgents. If they had not done that the insurgents would have 
acted with the democrats, and that would have been worse.” 

“And that worried President Coolidge?” asked Mr. Miller. 

“At least the president could not get the support he ought to 
have had in congress,” said Watson. “But the republicans in 
congress were not to blame. The people were to blame. In the 
last elections they did not elect enough republicans of the real and 
dependable kind to carry out the programs and promises made in 
the name of the party. That is why you thought of it as a do- 
nothing congress and one that would not cooperate with the repub¬ 
lican administration.” 

“I never understood the mix-up,” admitted Mr. Miller. 

“It is very easy to understand when you know the facts,” said 
Watson. “It was a mix-up. Sometimes it looked like a hopeless 
one. But, on the whole, the republicans in congress made a fairly 
good ending. They got through even a fairly good tax bill. They 
made the best out of many bad situations.” 

“But if we are going to elect Coolidge and Dawes, as I believe 
we will, then we ought to give them a real republican congress 
back of them,” said Mr. Miller. 

“That’s what ought to be done,” said Watson. “I hope that the 
congress to be elected in November will be either one thing or the 
other, either republican or democratic. I never again want to see 
a group of so-called insurgents holding the balance of power 
between the two parties. You can never have good results in 
national legislation with a handful of men playing with either 
party, holding the balance of power. So long as you have that you 
will have sectional and factional trading instead of national legis¬ 
lation.” 

“Instead of blaming congress we ought occasionally to blame 
ourselves, you think?” asked Mr. Miller. 


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9 


“In congress you get what you elect/’ said Watson. “If you 
elect only 208 republicans and it takes 218 to make a majority in 
the house you can not look for republican results and policies. The 
same is true in the senate. There it takes 49 to make a majority 
and at the present time you do not have that many real republicans 
in that august body.” 

“We must try to do better,” said the Lieutenant. 

CHAPTER IV 

The: “Club” Mee:ts in the Garage 

One morning, while the Lieutenant was very busy on the farm, 
Watson motored to town where Mr. Miller conducted him to the 
garage over which a big, jovial man named Jerry Jones presided 
as proprietor. It was a meeting place for what Jerry called “a 
gang of loafers,” many of them retired farmers living in town. 
There they discussed men and measures with the seriousness of a 
miniature congress. 

The “gang” was all there, for they had been told by Mr. Miller 
of Watson’s coming. Watson was glad to renew the acquaintances 
he had made two years before. 

They discussed first of all the rise in farm prices which was 
under full way. 

“It’s a trick of Wall street to make us feel better out here and 
vote right,” said the very thin and very cynical member. 

“Very likely,” said Watson, smiling. “Wall street is just that 
sort of an institution. They are going to empty their fabled vaults 
to pay you a billion dollars more for your products. They must 
be philanthropists as well as politicians.” 

“Well, if they’re willing to pay it,” said a fat, chubby little mem¬ 
ber, “let’s take it. We need it. If Wall street is doing it, they are 
doing more for the people than I ever heard of them politicians 
doing. All they ever seem to do for us is to talk, once in four 
years.” 

“But seriously,” said Watson, “of course you all know that Wall 
street is not doing it. It’s that old something that has been called 
the law of supply and demand. With bad weather almost the 
world over the crops are not promising well and suddenly there 
has come over us the fear we will not have enough of anything 
and so those who want food products, or deal in them, are bidding 
them up.” 


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“It sort of leaves the politicians strung up,” suggested Jerry 
Jones himself, pausing in his work. 

“I’m wishing no one ill,” remarked the thin cynic, “but we might 
do worse than keep them strung up, and get down to common 
sense.” 

“You must be a Coolidge man, my friend,” said Watson, “for 
he has just adopted that as one of his slogans. He wants the 
country to get back to common sense.” 

“I got the idea from his speech of acceptance,” confessed the 
thin man. “I approved it as soon as I read it.” 

“But what slogans have the others?” asked Mr. Miller. 

“They can’t sloganize so readily,” said Watson. “They are suf¬ 
fering from what the alienists call ‘complex inferiority/ if you 
know what that means. I don’t myself. But what I mean is that 
Mr. Coolidge is in the better position. He’s in. He wants to go 
ahead the way we are now headed, which is not a bad way, you all 
must admit. To keep going, when we’re going right, that’s com¬ 
mon sense. That’s the kind of common sense Lincoln talked when 
he advised us not to change horses in the middle of the stream. 
One might express it another way, don’t scramble the eggs of 
prosperity now in the nest. In fact, there are many ways in which 
one might express this common sense.” 

“And what are the others saying?” asked Mr. Miller. 

“I heard Mr. Davis’s speech of acceptance,” said Watson. “In 
half of it he scolded the republicans. Finding fault and scolding 
are easily done. It is harder to do something yourself. Mr. 
Coolidge has been doing things as president for a year. But Mr. 
Davis did not point to any thing wrong he had done.” 

“He couldn’t,” spoke up the chubby man, “for he’s been doing 
what he believes is right.” 

“Then Mr. Davis suggested,” Watson went on, “that we might 
still get into the league of nations. But that’s old stuff now. We 
rejected it four years ago and in the meantime, in Europe, they 
have just signed up for the Dawes plan. We are helping Europe 
while keeping ourselves unentangled.” 

“And how is La Follette going to talk?” asked one man. 

“He may not make a formal speech of acceptance,” said Wat¬ 
son. “He has been nominated by so many kinds of blocs and 
parties, so called, that he does not know how to accept all in one 
speech. He has gathered around him all who think they have 
grievances against their government. He has so many kinds for 
him, including pink socialists and some red communists and I. W. 


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11 


W.’s, that he himself seems lost in the hubbub. If that party could 
win in the election we would have the scenes around the Tower of 
Babel reenacted in Washington.” 

“But there are some good men in his following?” 

“Plenty of them,” said Watson. “Most Americans are good 
men and mean to do what’s right, but some of them occasionally 
follow queer leaders. But many of the good men who have been 
lured away into this new movement may see their way out of it 
later. There will be a lot of thinking done before the voting is 
done. These men will see that this is essentially a socialistic-led 
movement, and men of sense in America do not want socialism.” 

“But what about La Follette himself ?” asked Mr. Miller. 

“He’s making the best of what he realizes is his last political 
rally,” said Watson. “He’s an old man, almost three score and 
ten. He has come to that age soured. He thinks everything is 
wrong, because he hasn’t been able to get what he wants, the presi¬ 
dency. He is not a well man. He was sick during most of the last 
session of congress. He was hardly ever in his seat in the senate. 
He will not make a speaking campaign. If he exerted himself he 
might not last until November. If the third ticket were elected, 
you might as well begin to think of Burton K. Wheeler as a very 
possible president, and he would be ‘radical’ enough to please the 
red communists as well as the pink socialists. Just think of 
Wheeler!” 

“Me for Coolidge and common sense,” said one man. 

“You can’t go wrong that way,” said Watson. 

CHAPTER V 

Preparing eor Meeting in Grove 

Clarence Watson had not been at Four Corners long when he 
received a telegram recalling him to his newspaper work. It 
brought sorrow to all for the visit was proceeding so happily. 

But in the face of what had to be, the Millers invited their 
neighbors and friends to a picnic dinner in the grove, to give all 
an opportunity of meeting Mr. Watson and hearing him talk about 
affairs in Washington and the nation. Mr. Miller personally 
invited all the members of the “club” in the garage. 

The Miller Grove at Four Corners was a famous meeting place 
and had been such for half a century. Burr oaks and white oaks 
grew there, and walnut trees and hickory trees added variety. The 


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grove had been there when the white settlers came. The fires that 
had probably denuded the prairies, could not reach it because of 
what had been a swamp and a deep ravine to protect it. 

On the day of the picnic, Mr. Miller and his “loafers” from the 
garage “club” came early to help put the grove in order. Watson 
worked with them. 

“When my father settled here,” said Mr. Miller, during an inter¬ 
val of work, “there wasn’t another settler between him and the 
lake.” 

“I have read,” said Watson, “that the pioneers did not want 
close-up neighbors. They were individualists who moved on their 
own initiative.” 

“You mean they stood alone and did for themselves,” said Mr. 
Miller, translating Watson’s language into the vernacular for 
his “club” cronies. “That is correct. They were that way in those 
days.” 

“We have been losing some of that pioneer spirit in our Amer¬ 
ican life,” said Watson. “We are losing it much faster in the cities 
than in the country. In the cities we have today much mass-think¬ 
ing and mass-action.” 

“Why not call it mob-thinking and mob-action?” asked the 
Lieutenant. 

“Whatever you want to call it,” said Watson. “But I hope 
American individualism and American initiative will not be sub¬ 
merged into any form of socialism here in the country. It is from 
the country that our cities draw the men who do the big things. 
Read over the lists of successful men in the cities and see where 
they come from. Seventy percent are rural bred.” 

“But while the country is supplying you with that kind of men, 
what are the cities returning to us ?” asked the Lieutenant. “Today 
they are scattering among us their propagandas and some of them 
run pretty red.” 

“But are our city socialists making headway in the country?” 
asked Watson, with some concern. 

“They did for a while,” said the Lieutenant, “especially while 
our prices were running low. Whenever we are in hard luck, the 
preachers of discord come among us with their new fangled doc¬ 
trines.” 

“And when a man is in hard luck,” added Mr. Miller, “he has 
sensitive ears for all kinds of suggestions and remedies. He’s like 
a sinking man reaching for straws.” 


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“What helped their propaganda among us for a while,” said the 
chubby member, “is the stuff that was sent out from Washington 
about corruption and all that. Many then began to believe that 
everything was going wrong.” 

“And you out here thought you might as well go wrong with it,” 
suggested Watson, laughing. “As if two wrongs would make a 
right. But I am afraid you were wrong both in your conclusions 
and in the facts on which you based them.” 

“What were the facts ?” asked the quizzical, thin man. 

“The story is a long one,” said Watson. “There were some 
facts, but nine-tenths of the fuss and muss was an attempt to make 
things appear as bad as possible and that for the sheer sake of 
politics. Some men proceeded on the Russian soviet maxim, ‘hec¬ 
tor and harass your government/ so as to disgust the people with it 
and have them turn it over to you.” 

“They surely did that,” said Mr. Miller. 

“But when Senator Walsh, a democratic investigator who wanted 
to make things appear as bad as possible for the republicans,” said 
Watson, “made his final report, he was honest enough to admit 
that there was only one man in the oil transactions, for instance, 
connected with the government, whom he found guilty of ‘repre¬ 
hensible’ conduct, which he termed ‘essentially criminal’ in char¬ 
acter, and even against that man it had to be proved in the courts.” 

“But there were democrats in that too,” said Mr. Miller. 

“Yes, Mr. Doheny was a candidate for the democratic nomina¬ 
tion for vice president in 1920,” said Watson. “And Mr. McAdoo, 
his attorney, wanted to be president.” 

“That evens that up, politically,” said the chubby man. 

“No, it doesn’t,” said Watson quickly. “Wrong doing, what¬ 
ever it is, can never be what you call evened up. It is no justifica¬ 
tion for wrong doing to say that others did it too. That was not 
the position that President Coolidge took in the matter. He took 
the position that all wrong doing must be ferreted out and pun¬ 
ished, no matter whether it was done by republicans or democrats. 
He said he would shield no man because a republican, nor pursue 
another man because a democrat.” 

“And that’s how Mr. Coolidge hit the bull’s eye,” said Mr. Mil¬ 
ler. “When he spoke up that way we not only increased our con¬ 
fidence in him, but our confidence in our government came back.” 

“You should never have lost that confidence in your govern¬ 
ment as a whole,” said Watson, “even if it is proved that one man 


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does wrong in it. A wrong man might get into even a church. But 
if you have men like Calvin Coolidge at the head, you need have 
no fear that any wrong doing will ever get far.” 

“We believe that of Coolidge,” said the thin man. 

“And he will justify your faith in him,” Watson assured him. 

CHAPTER VI 

When the Guests Began to Assemble 

The dinner in the grove was set for six o’clock, but long before 
that hour the guests began to assemble, for in the country they 
are seldom late. 

“This doesn’t look like hard times,” suggested Watson, as he saw 
the heavy baskets and hampers lifted out of the automobiles and 
placed on the tables. 

“Not starvation times, at least,” remarked Jerry Jones. 

“We’ve had no hard times out here as to food,” said Mr. Miller, 
“but only as to money, what they call the cash.” 

“And now with prices going up we’d have more money if we 
had more to sell,” said a ruddy-faced man. “I sold my corn and 
hogs too soon. But I have some wheat that looks like real money 
and I’ll have some hogs later.” 

“But while you are counting yours in real money,” suggested 
Watson, “please think of us in the cities and have some mercy on 
us. We have to do the paying this time. We have to buy our 
bread and bacon.” 

“Maybe you will be asking for laws to put prices down,” said 
the thin, cynical man, “just as we’ve been asking for laws to put 
them up.” 

“I hope we won’t have to go that far,” said Watson, “although 
they are doing that very thing in Paris. I hope we shall be both 
willing and able to pay a little more for food, provided you get a 
little more for your products. We want you to prosper on your 
farms, for we have learned that unless you prosper here we can 
not prosper in the cities. None of us can prosper unless we all 
prosper. We must not think in blocs, but as a whole people.” 

“That’s what I call common sense, “ said Mr. Miller. 

“And that is part of what Mr. Coolidge calls common sense,” 
added Watson. “The American people can not prosper in blocs. 
You want business to prosper in the cities so that the cities may 
absorb your products at remunerative prices for production. And 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


15 


we want you to prosper on your farms so that you may buy what 
we manufacture in the cities.” 

“How to keep things balanced all the time, that’s the problem,” 
suggested Mr. Miller. 

“Sometimes it can’t be done,” said Watson. “Something hap¬ 
pens somewhere to upset the balance. The last time it was a 
World War, and it has taken a lot of patience and work and faith 
to get back to the balance.” 

“But the third party men now say the government could have 
done it, if they had been in,” said one man. 

“Oh, yes, the government,” said Watson, laughing at the idea. 
“They would have the government buy everything at high prices 
and then sell it at low prices, thus pleasing both the producer and 
consumer. But the tax payers would have to foot the difference, 
and the tax payers are all the people, so what would that get us ?” 

“Let the government make money,” said the cynic. 

“And of course, that’s easy,” said Watson, “The government 
has printing presses. The government used the printing presses 
in Russia and Germany, and see where it landed them. After try¬ 
ing it, Germany is now going back on the old basis of common 
sense, and you will see Germany come out big and strong again. 

“No, we can’t go into any foolishness like that and expect to 
come out whole,” said Mr. Miller. “We know that here as well 
as in Washington. The real farmers have never been in favor of 
the government buying their products. They know that spells 
disaster for all.” 

“It wouldn’t be necessary if we could always have what they 
now call a shortage,” said one farmer. 

“But you cannot always have that,” said Watson, “and no one 
should wish it. Some years we may be glad to eat what was left 
over from last year. A surpluses a good thing for the world as 
a whole, but it is a bad thing for you here on the farms if you all 
try to sell \it at once.” 

“You’d have us store our surplus, when we have one? asked 
the Lieutenant. 

“At least I jwould not have you dump it on the markets, said 
Watson. “That is where you can work out your cooperative sys¬ 
tem, and I believe you will do it.” . 

“Why not let the government do the the cooperating? asked 
the cynical man. 

“You don’t mean that,” said Watson. “The government may 
in many ways help you to help yourselves, and that is all that it 


16 


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ought to be asked to do. The man who eats the bread has as 
much claim on the government as the man who grows the wheat. 
The government should facilitate fair trade between them, but 
not fix prices for either.” 

“Your’re right about that,” said Mr. Miller. 


CHAPTER VII 

The “Peepul” oe the Politicians 

“I thought you men came here to help us,” said Mrs. Miller, 
pushing her way through those gathered about Watson. “But 
you seem to think of nothing except talking politics.” 

“But they will not forget to eat after we have done the work,” 
said Dorothy, looking somewhat sternly at her talkative husband. 

“While we’re trying to save the country,” replied Watson, “for 
goodness sake why can’t you women do a little work and keep 
still about it?” 

“That’s the trouble with the country now,” said Mrs. Miller. 
“There are too many men trying to save it by talking, instead of 
by working. President Coolidge is the one man who is talking 
the least and doing most.” 

“He’s not exactly a yawper,” said Jerry Jones. 

“And that’s what most of them are in politics,” Mrs. Miller 
came back, “Yawpers, whatever that is. They yawp and yawp, 
and where does it get us ?” 

“It gets them into offices,” suggested Jones. 

“You are quite right, Mrs. Miller,” said Watson. “There is 
too much talking. When the last congress was about to adjourn, 
Senator La Follette literally rushed from his hospital to Wash¬ 
ington trying to hold it in session all summer.” 

“What for?” asked Mrs. Miller. 

“Why to talk, of course,” said Jerry Jones. 

“No, to relieve the farmers, so he said,” replied Watson. “After 
watching congress for six months and proposing nothing himself 
to relieve the farmers, he woke up.” 

“But as soon as they adjourned, relief began to come in rising 
prices,” said the cynical man, grinning. 

“Yes,” said Watson, “and the rise in prices might'have started 
earlier if they had adjourned earlier, for as long as congress con¬ 
tinued to talk and to threaten, men hesitated to go ahead with 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


17 


their business undertakings. Every one who had a project in 
mind waited to see what congress was going to do. Factories 
ran, slowed down, railroads waited to place orders for equipment 
and materials, and buyers stayed out of the markets until the 
men with wild speeches and hostile bills had adjourned.” 

“And if we should in November elect a congress composed of 
what you call wild men with hostile bills, what would happen?” 
asked Mr. Miller. 

“My friend,” said Watson, solemnly, “I would hesitate to pre¬ 
dict what might happen. My own opinion is we would have the 
biggest slowing down of business we have ever had in this 
country. Put the wild men in power and wise men will with¬ 
draw to their cyclone caves to wait until the wind storm is over. 
Just think of it in personal terms, if you had money, would you 
invest it or hide it while a new and reckless crew was running the 
governmental train? Think that over, for it is something that 
you have to pass on when you vote in November. You will help 
decide whether this government shall go on as usual, or shall 
start on a socialistic route that may end in something like they 
have in Russia.” 

“That’s bringing the issue home,” admitted Mr. Miller. 

“And that’s the place to ponder these issues,” said Watson. “In 
your homes. We must quit talking generalities. What will be¬ 
come of your homes, as well as your business, with socialism in 
the saddle politically ?” 

“Now you’re talking straight,” said Jerry Jones. “When I was 
a laboring man, I never saw the name of a political agitator or 
socialist signed to my pay checks. They are not the ‘gents’ who 
sign such checks — all they ever do is to nag and harass those 
who try to put the money in the banks to meet the weekly pay¬ 
rolls.” 

“And still we make popular heroes of those who play politics,” 
said Watson, “and try to crucify those who struggle to keep 
things going so we can all make livings.” 

“And now La Follette is asking us to help him nationalize 
that kind of folly,” spoke up the cynical man, “and make it our 
country’s permanent policy.” 

“Exactly that,” said Watson. 

“We elected a bunch of them two years ago and what have they 
actually done for us so far?” asked Mr. Miller. 

“They have talked and talked, scolded and scolded, and nagged 


18 


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and nagged,” said Watson, “but the Henrik Shipsteads and 
Magnus Johnsons, all together, did not bring forth one new 
or constructive idea.” 

“That’s the way I sized them up as I tried to follow the Con¬ 
gressional Record,” said Mr. Miller. 

“All their relief measures were appropriation bills,” said Wat¬ 
son. “But appropriation bills mean more tax bills and the people 
are paying about all the taxes they can stand.” 

“It’s easy enough for politicians to appropriate moneys that 
others pay,” said Mr. Miller. 

“But didn’t Magnus milk his own cow in Washington?” asked 
Jerry Jones. 

“He milked one in a contest,” said Watson, “and was defeated 
in that specialty of his statesmanship.” 

“But is it statesmanship ?” asked the cynical man. 

“No, it’s just a political sideline,” said Watson, smiling. 
“Politicians like to be picturesque for it is the spectacular that 
catches some people who vote.” 

“Then let them milk their cows and not the tax payers,” in¬ 
sisted the cynic. 


CHAPTER VIII 
But What of “Farm Relief?” 

“A while ago,” said Jerry Jones, “you referred to the fact that 
all the Magnuses and the Ship — what is the rest of it ? — and 
even La Follette himself had not made one practical proposition 
on farm relief, didn’t you?” 

“I did,” said Watson. 

“I agree with you that they have done nothing,” Jerry Jones 
went on, “and I don’t believe they ever will do anything more 
than talk, but just how much more are your leaders going to do 
for the farmers if we keep them in?” 

“Yes,” added the cynic, “just what is it?” 

“The solution,” replied Watson, “for what you call the farm¬ 
er’s problems will never be reached through partisan politics. The 
more you toss such problems about in politics the farther you will 
be from solving them. General Dawes told them that at Lincoln, 
Nebraska, the other day. He has the right idea.” 

“And just what is his idea?” asked Jerry Jones. 

“He told them that so-called farm relief is a national question 
and one that should be settled in a national way. It is a non- 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


19 


partisan question and it should not be dragged into partisan poli¬ 
tics. The more politicians wrangle, the more confusion.” 

“Well, what would he do about it?” asked the cynic. 

“He proposed to leave it to a national conference,” replied Wat¬ 
son. “It ought to be a conference in keeping with the disarma¬ 
ment or the European reparations conference, for it is a big 
question. Mr. Dawes would summon to that conference the best 
minds on such subjects, not only the best agricultural minds but 
the best business minds, for the combined wisdom of the country 
is needed when you undertake such big problems.” 

“That’s different from having a lot of talk-e-talk politicians 
wrangling over it,” suggested Mr. Miller. 

“Maybe Mr. Coolidge suggested that idea to Mr. Dawes, for 
Mr. Coolidge is some farmer and business man himself,” sug¬ 
gested the chubby man. 

“I do not know whose suggestion it is,” said Watson, “and that 
doesn’t matter, but it is certainly a leading in the right direction.” 

“It sounds as if it had both ‘common sense’ and ‘brass-tacks’ 
in it,” said Mr. Miller, “and so Mr. Coolidge and Mr. Dawes may 
have gotten it up together.” 

“The objective point,” said Watson, “Mr. Dawes told them in 
Lincoln, should be to find if an ‘equality in earning capacity can 
be maintained between agriculture and industry.’ ” 

“That’s it,” said Mr. Miller. 

“Yes, that’s it,” repeated Watson. “The farmer’s selling price 
and his buying price have been out of harmony. And while un¬ 
der the stimulus of higher prices the inequality is now disappear¬ 
ing, Mr. Dawes told them that this rise in prices had not solved 
the whole problem permanently. To find such permanent and 
basic solution would be the work of the proposed conference.” 

“And they promise to do that?” asked Mr. Miller. 

“That is one of the things they will try to do,” said Watson. 
“It is possible that some legislation may be applied. But it must 
not be of the hap-hazard political and partisan kind. It must be 
national in its scope and based on business and not politics.” 

“For one, Pwould like to see Mr. Dawes himself on such a com¬ 
mission,” . said the chubby man. “He helped to solve their 
European muddle. He seems to have a mind for solving prob¬ 
lems. I have more faith in that sort of doing and get-there man 
than in all these professional politicians who yawp without know¬ 
ing what they are yawping about.” 

“At least the time has come,” said Watson, “when we must 


20 


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approach such questions in a common sense way, instead of mak¬ 
ing them mere political vote-catching devices.” 

“I’m not a farmer,” said Jerry Jones, “but I know enough to 
say that both farmers and laboring men — and I belong to labor, 
as I have told you — are too apt to follow the yawping politicians 
around Robin Hood’s barn — and where has it ever got them 
anything, except more troubles.” 

“Yep,” said the chubby man, “the time has come for ‘common 
sense’ applied to ‘brass-tack’ facts.” 

“The trouble in the last congress,” said Watson, “was a multi¬ 
tude of vague ideas. No two men, even among farm leaders, 
were agreed on what should be done. The result was, nothing 
was done. Let’s begin by finding something so sound that all can 
agree on it — and then do it.” 

“If that is the Coolidge and Dawes program, then I’m for 
them,” said the cynic. 


CHAPTER IX 

Corn Sugar and Other Things 

“I forgot to bring any sugar,” said one of the women who were 
still busied about the tables. 

“Never mind that,” said Mary. “There is plenty of sugar here, 
and there’s more in the house.” 

“Yes, we buy it by the sack,” said the Lieutenant to the men 
with whom he was talking. 

“And it probably comes from Cuba,” said Watson, “when you 
might be getting it from Iowa.” 

“I’ve tried sugar beets,” spoke up one of the farmers, “but it 
takes too much labor to grow them.” 

“But I meant sugar from corn, not beets,” said Watson. 

“We’ve been talking corn sugar here in Iowa,” said Mr. Miller, 
“and we have hopes of it.” 

“There are more than hopes,” Watson told him, “in this new 
industry. The manufacturers are now finding markets for half 
a million pounds output a day and the market for it can be ex¬ 
panded for it is an ideal sugar, even if it is not as sweet as cane 
or beet sugar. Sugar made from corn is dextrose, or what 
the doctors call blood sugar, while cane sugar is sucrose which the 
human stomach must convert into dextrose before it can be assimi¬ 
lated by the system.” 

“It’s predigested sugar then?” said the cynic. 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


21 


“It is ready for assimilation as soon as you eat it,” said Wat¬ 
son. “It is so healthful and nutritious that doctors are now pre¬ 
scribing it in hospitals and for children. It is as harmless as 
bread.” 

“Do you think it will supplant other sugars?” 

“It will never do that,” said Watson. “Cane sugar will always 
have its uses, but if we substitute corn sugar for only a third or 
a fourth of present uses we would create a market for 100,000,000 
bushels of corn.” 

“That would take care of the surplus corn in our biggest corn 
years,” suggested the Lieutenant. 

“And taking care of what you call your surplus corn in that 
way is better than trying to take care of it by law,” suggested 
Watson. “That is the point I want to make out of this new sugar. 

It is better to create new industries and find new uses for your 
products than it is to pass more laws. The men who build such 
new factories and develop such new markets for your products 
are more useful to you and to the country than the men who talk 
political buncombe and manufacture nothing except political 
promises for campaign uses. Get right on that idea and you will 
find yourselves getting more right industrially and financially.” 

“How much sugar do we use?” asked Mr. Miller. 

“The American consumption of sugar amounts now to 5 H • 
million tons a year, or more than a hundred pounds for every 
man, woman, and child in the country. The Americans are the 
biggest sugar consumers in the world. And our consumption is 
still growing.” 

“Where does all this sugar come from?” 

“The bulk of it from Cuba,” said Watson, “although we are 
now producing almost a million tons at home from beets and cane 
in Louisiana, and we get more than another million tons from 
what we call our island possessions, meaning Porto Rico, Hai- 
waii, the Virgin Islands, and the Philippines. Our imports from 
Cuba for the year ending June 30 last were 3,929,000 tons. At 
25 pounds of sugar from a bushel of corn it would take 314 
million bushels"of corn to displace Cuban cane. I repeat, there is 
no reason, why we should not so substitute at least a third, or even 
more and that, as I have said, would dispose of 100 million 
bushels or more of our corn.” 

“That sounds like good business,” said Jerry Jones. “But what 
about the tariff ?” 

“To maintain our beet sugar industry and to develop our corn 


22 


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sugar industry,” said Watson, “we need a tariff on sugar. A hun¬ 
dred pounds of extractable sugar can be produced in Cuba for 
around a dollar, while it costs around three dollars to produce the 
same amount of sugar'from either beets or corn. The present 
tariff on Cuban sugar is $1.76 a hundred pounds, and that just 
about makes up the difference in cost of production.” 

“But that’s a tax on us consumers,” said Jones. 

“Yes and no,” said Watson. “If you did not collect this so- 
called tax on sugar you would have to collect it in some other way. 
If the tariff is a tax it is one easily and cheaply collected at the 
custom houses, and every one pays his share for every one con¬ 
sumes sugar.” 

“But it increases the price of sugar,” said Jones. 

“Yes and no again,” said Watson. “Remove this tariff and you 
would kill your beet sugar industry, and stop the development of 
corn sugar. That would give the foreign sugar producers con¬ 
trol of the markets and they might easily work their prices up so 
that we would pay as much or even more than we are now paying 
for sugar.” 

“That’s what would happen, sure enough,” said Mr. Miller. 

“But while our sugar probably costs no more,” Watson went 
on, “with this tariff protection we can go on and develop our own 
sugar industry and use American grown corn instead of foreign 
grown cane, for at least a large part of our consumption.” 

“I’m for doing it,” spoke up the chubby man. 

“It’s the American way,” said Watson. “Under our American 
tariff system we have built up here the greatest industrial nation 
in the world — the nation of greatest producers and greatest con¬ 
sumers. I see no reason why we should abolish a system that has 
served us so well.” 

“And we won’t abolish it,” said Mr. Miller. 

CHAPTER X 

Around Well-Laden Tables 

The dinner was ready at last. Mary’s announcement of the 
fact was greeted with cheers. 

Every man found his own place, sitting with his own wife, and 
with their children around them. 

The food was the best, and there was plenty of it, including big 
platters of cold fried chicken. 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


23 


There were many good eaters at the tables, but Watson him¬ 
self admitted he had never before eaten so much or so well. He 
insisted it was a feast, not a dinner. 

When the eating was over, the dishes were hastily removed and 
put back into the baskets and hampers unwashed. When all this 
was done, Mr. Miller arose and rapped for order. 

“I find myself in command/’ he said, “but by just what right I 
do not know.” 

“This is your grove, Dad,” said the Eieutenant. 

“And maybe, you’re the oldest,” said the thin man. 

“Whatever the reason may be,” Mr. Miller went on, “I’m in 
command, and I propose to be obeyed. Those on whom I call 
must speak, and those who are not called upon to speak must keep 
still. The boss of the gang does not handle pick or spade, and so 
I do not have to make a speech. But there are a few things I 
want to say on my own account. 

“One of them is that I am glad we are all here. It is good to 
meet and to talk as friends and neighbors. I am also glad that 
we have with us again our young friend from Washington, his 
wife, our Dorothy, and their children. 

“I have been thinking that this is another momentous year in 
American politics. Every presidential election is a momentous 
event. Our country, like our souls, must be saved periodically. 
This year it must be saved not from enemies without, but from 
enemies from within.” 

“You mean borers from within,” suggested Watson. 

“Yes, that describes them,” Mr. Miller went on, “but many of 
them, or most of them, are not enemies of our country and their 
country. They are mostly merely misled men. 

“I have heard it said that we are all stockholders in a pretty 
big and going concern, called the U. S. A. As such stockholders 
we must pay a little attention to the business of this concern. In 
the November elections we will elect new directors and managers 
for it and every man and woman ought to take an intelligent in¬ 
terest in that proceeding. Every one ought to vote, at least. 

“To do this we have plenty of patriotism left. Down deep in 
our hearts we are all still patriotic. But we are in danger of in¬ 
difference. Don’t be indifferent this year, for there is too much 
at stake. 

“In recent times the mind of America has been somewhat con¬ 
fused. But the heart of it is still right. We have been under 
some stress and strain. Out here we are apt to think the stress 


24 


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and strain have been the greatest. But maybe not. Others have 
had their problems to solve as well as we have had ours. 

“While we were under this stress and strain, the propagandists 
and the ‘borers from within/ and also from without, came among 
us. By appealing to prejudices they have sought to array man 
against man and class against class. They have tried to turn the 
hearts of the people even against their own government. 

“Our American pioneers had a good saying. It was, go right 
straight ahead and right straight through. That saying is still 
good. Let us not leave the main roads to follow angling roads 
that may end in a morass. 

“When Job was afflicted many came to give him advice. Some 
of his counsellors were wise and some were otherwise. Job won 
the victory by keeping the faith and he had patience. 

“Like Job, we have been somewhat afflicted, and like Job, we’ve 
had many counsellors, some wise and some otherwise. Some 
counsellors have come to us even from Russia. But if we are 
wise we shall not follow them. 

“They have told us that our government has been to blame for 
our afflictions. I do not believe it. Our afflictions began when 
the nations abandoned themselves to the follies of a World War. 
Through it all, our government has maintained its credit and its 
honor. We still have the best government left on earth. Let’s 
keep it so. 

“But I have said enough. I will now call on the first speaker, 
Hezekiah Smith, an old-time friend of mine who dropped into 
Storm Lake this morning and whom I persuaded to remain long 
enough to tell you some of the things he has been telling me. He 
can talk about anything he wants to, even the tariff, but he must 
be brief, for long speeches will not be tolerated tonight.” 

CHAPTER XI 
The Tariee is Injected 

Mr. Miller’s reference to the tariff, in introducing Hezekiah 
Smith, started a conversational discussion of this issue that forced 
Mr. Smith to wait his speech. 

“Let them have it out,” said Mr. Miller. 

“I want to ask Mr. Watson a few questions about the tariff,” 
said a serious faced man, arising. 

“All right, fire away, Gridley,” said Watson. 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


25 


“It happens my name is not Gridley,” said the man still more 
seriously. “My question is this,” he added, “Is it not true that but 
for the tariff we could buy our commodities cheaper?” 

“Undoubtedly,” replied Watson, “they can make some things 
cheaper in Europe than we can make them here, and if we let 
them in free they could be sold here for less.” 

“Then why not let them in ?” asked the man. 

“And what would you do with the Americans who are now 
making those things ?” 

“Let them do something else.” 

“What, for instance?” asked Watson. “Recently there was 
brought to New York from Czechoslovakia a shipment of women’s 
garments. These garments could be sold in New York for $30 
a dozen. But the cost of making them in America was $60 a 
dozen.” 

“Then American wages are too high,” said the man. 

“You might not think so, my friend,” said Watson, “if you had 
to support your family in New York on those wages. But if we 
would let those foreign garments in free, the American workers 
would have to work for foreign wages, which are probably $1 a 
day, or else quit work. There are probably a million garment 
workers in New York and its manufacturing area. Suppose they 
had to work for $1 a day, or become idle, then who would buy 
your farm products at high prices?” 

“They would still have to eat,” insisted the man. 

“But they might have to eat soup in the streets,” said Watson, 
“instead of pork cut from $10 hogs. Then what would become 
of your hog markets and prices?” 

“We could sell our products to Czechoslovakia, or wherever 
they made those garments,” said the man. 

“But how much pork cut from $10 hogs could those workers re¬ 
ceiving a dollar a day buy?” asked Watson. “No, from 85 to 95 
per cent of what you produce on your farms has to be consumed 
in America and unless Americans have work and good wages they 
can not buy them at prices that are fair to ypu who produce them.” 

“I guess,”" said Mr. Miller, “we would better keep our Ameri¬ 
cans working, even if our women have to pay a little more for 
their garments — we sell more hogs than we buy garments, any¬ 
way.” 

“That’s the philosophy of the tariff,” said Watson. 

“I want to ask a question,” said another man, when the first 
questioner subsided. “Is it not true that we farmers buy our 


26 


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goods in protected markets, but that we sell our products in free 
trade markets ?” 

“That is what you have been told recently,” said Watson, “and 
there is just about enough plausibility in such statements to give 
them credence. No, it is not true that you sell in a free trade 
market and buy in a protected one — that is, it is not true as a 
whole, although it is true of some things. Your butter, your 
eggs, your corn and even wheat are protected and so are your 
meats. Those who produce these things not only believe in pro¬ 
tection, but they are asking for more protection. The Iowa Corn 
Growers Association is asking the president to increase the tariff 
on corn from 15 to 22^4 cents to keep out the Argentine corn 
which is just now coming in by millions of bushels. The dairy¬ 
men of the country have made a protest against importing butter 
and they want the tariff increased from 8 to 12 cents.” 

“Are we importing butter ?” asked the man. 

“Last year Denmark shipped into America nine million pounds, 
and four millions came in from New Zealand on the other side of 
the globe,” said Watson. “So much came in that we now have a 
surplus of our own butter in cold storage. Take off the present 
eight cents a pound tariff and we would be flooded with foreign 
butters and, presumably, it would go down at least that eight cents 
a pound.” 

“I wouldn’t take it off,” suggested Mr. Miller. 

“I think I would increase it to 12 cents,” added Watson, “al¬ 
though as a city man I would have to pay a little more for butter, 
but I would rather pay that little more than have American farm¬ 
ers get less for their product than the cost of making it. The 
same is true of eggs of which we imported last year millions of 
pounds, dried and pickled, from China and other countries. And 
as for corn, it is found they can undersell your prices at seaboard 
by bringing corn as ballast in vessels from the Argentine. So 
you see,” added Watson, “you do not sell all your products in so- 
called free trade markets.” 

“But what we buy, what about that ?” asked one man. 

“Not all that you buy is protected,” said Watson. “There is no 
tariff on shoes, nor on leather from which they are made. Shoes 
are on the free list.” 

“Then why are they'so high?” asked the questioner. 

“Many things enter into that,” said Watson, “chief of which 
are wages, but the tariff is not one of the items in the cost of 
shoes. Your binder twine is another thing that is on the free list. 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


27 


There is no tariff on barbed wire, nor is there on farm machinery. 
In fact, the farmer has a formidable list of things that he buys in 
free trade markets.” 

“Then why have they been telling us that what we buy is pro¬ 
tected and that we pay protective prices for it, while what we sell 
is not protected and we get free trade world prices for it?” asked 
the man. 

“Those who have been telling you that do not know,” said Wat¬ 
son, “and some of them do not want to know. They are politicians 
who deal in half truths. Half truths, cleverly told,” added Wat¬ 
son, “often serve the purposes of the politicians who want to get 
your votes.” 

“And you think we farmers have a stake in the tariff?” asked 
Mr. Miller to clinch that truth. 

“I should say a very vital stake,” replied Watson. “First, you 
are interested in a good American standard of wages, for unless 
the men who work in the cities have work and get good wages, 
they can not pay you high prices for what you produce and they 
eat. A man who gets only a dollar a day, which is a high foreign 
wage scale, can not buy much 30 or 40 cent meat cut from $10 
hogs. That may be called your indirect interest in the tariff. 
The direct interest I have already cited in the tariff on your own 
products, such as butter, eggs, corn, and even wheat.” 

CHAPTER XII 

Hezekiah Smith Makes His Speech 

“You are all mistaken,” Hezekiah Smith told them when he 
finally got attention for his speech. “I had no intention of even 
alluding to the tariff. I do not know enough about the tariff to 
discuss it intelligently, and I do not want to follow the prevailing 
habit in American politics of talking about things that the talkers 
do not know anything about. I am going to talk to you of some¬ 
thing that I do know about.” 

“Go to it,"Hezekiah,” shouted a man far back. 

“I am what they call a ‘dirt farmer/ ” he went on. “That is, I 
live on my own land and I work it with my own hands. But I 
use my head, too. Now-a-days you need a head in farming as 
well as in business. Some farm with only their hands and feet. 
That is, they hold the plow and follow it. But those who use their 
heads, who think and plan and study, get along better. 


28 


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“When I was much younger than I am now I was somewhat 
full of notions. For a while I believed that we could set this old 
world right by making a few more laws. My neighbors believed 
in me and in my notions, and sent me to Des Moines where I 
helped to make some laws of the kind they are still talking about, 
for the politicians never seem to become wiser. 

“But I thank God that I soon became wise enough to know we 
can not make the world over with a few laws. I returned from 
Des Moines believing that I could do more for myself than they 
could do for me either in any state legislature or in the congress 
in Washington. Now when one of these ever-promising and all- 
promising politicians tries to stop me to tell me how he can re¬ 
make the world so that we can all live in it without working, I tell 
him frankly that in my opinion he is simply a man who is himself 
too lazy to work.” 

“That’s hitting ’em right, Hezekiah,” they shouted. 

“Just now some of these lazy and mentally lousy fellows are 
telling us that some one, or may be it’s the government, is oppress¬ 
ing and robbing us, and if we will kindly turn the government over 
to them they will get rid of the oppressors and the robbers and 
then we can all have or take what we want. I wonder how much 
they are thinking of us, and how much of themselves? 

“I know as well as they do that something has been the matter 
with us. We have had to pay for the biggest folly of history, the 
World War. You can’t kill millions of men and destroy billions 
of property without paying for it and suffering over it afterwards. 

“But instead of using common sense to reconstruct and revivify 
things, these politicians are resorting to the cheap political tactics 
of trying to array one class against another as if we could over¬ 
come the evils of the World War by getting into internal strife, 
by arraying class against class and section against section, and 
bloc against bloc. Might not such dissensions among ourselves 
leave us worse off than we were? 

“I hail from Garnavillo, which your presiding officer forgot to 
tell you. I do not blame him for it, for Garnavillo is a very small 
place. You will not find it even on the maps of the railroads, for 
no railroad comes nearer than six miles to it. But in that village 
we had on deposit the other day $2,000,000, and not a dollar of it 
was borrowed money. It was the money which we had digged 
out of the soil of Clayton county, Iowa, and much of it came out 
of milking cows. 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


29 


“I have just been in Wisconsin, where, I believe, is the seat of 
our political discontent. I went there to look up some new cows. 
They have good cows up there. I saw no evidence of the cruel 
injustice that the political agitators are preaching to the country. 
The people seemed prosperous, on the farms as well as in the 
cities, although some complain that taxes were too high. Sena¬ 
tor La Follette may fool them again, politically, but some of the 
men I talked with left me in doubt on that. 

“I have also been traveling in the Dakotas, across those fine 
stretches of land that are destined for something more and better 
than political discontent. I own land up there. As a land owner 
I know all that they have passed through. It has not been easy. 
Sometimes the crops have been small and most of the time prices 
have been too low. But to me that was not due to politics and 
they are not things that can be made better by politics. 

“But they are better already and that without politics. The new 
world-demands for products have done more for my land up 
there than all the wild proposals of the politicians. A man who 
wanted to buy a piece of land followed me to the train. He off¬ 
ered me a fair price too. But I see a fairer price ahead. After 
the backsets and misfortunes and the calamity talk it is wonderful 
haw land has held up. There have been enough lies told about 
our farms everywhere to bankrupt Paradise itself. Nothing but 
land could withstand such calamity talk. Under such attacks any 
other form of property would go down to the demnition bow¬ 
wows. 

“Farming up there as well as here is coming back into its own, 
and that, I repeat, without the aid of the politicians, but in spite 
of them, and with them, in fact, hanging about our necks like so 
many millstones. Wise men looking to the future are investing 
in corn and wheat lands. I read of one firm that is so investing a 
million dollars. I read in the Miller, Hand county, South Dako¬ 
ta, Gazette that the movement back to the corn and alfalfa lands 
of that state has already started, and the paper predicts that in the 
near future such lands will be selling for much higher prices. I 
can not doubt it, after seeing it. 

“In Miller, I met a realtor who told me that a heavy movement 
of settlers into South Dakota has commenced. He said the rail¬ 
road reports showed that five hundred cars of immigrants and 
their goods had entered the state up to the first week of June last. 
He is saying that the time to buy lands is now. I heard much more 


30 


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about land and corn and alfalfa than I did of politics. The people 
are tired of politics and they want to go back to business and to 
what Mr. Coolidge has called common sense. 

“I have a son in Kansas and a daughter in Nebraska. They 
have both written me letters full of the expressions of new hope 
and confidence. In fact, my son in Kansas boasts that they are 
politically as sane in that state as in the president’s Vermont. 
Kansas has been standing up, you know. Nebraska, my daughter 
thinks, is better represented by Charley Dawes than by Charley 
Bryan — she says it’s calmness against calamity. I guess she got 
the idea of calmness from Coolidge. 

“So everywhere men and women seem to be working out their 
own salvation. The chains of slavery that the political orators 
rave about I guess are the chains on the hind wheels of the auto¬ 
mobiles that I found as thick in the Dakotas as in Iowa. 

“And if there is any salvation to be worked out in Washington 
— and some, I think, can be worked out there — it can be done by 
Coolidge and Dawes better than by any of the loud mouthed re¬ 
formers with their patented political nostrums. Mr. Coolidge 
without a vice president to help him, and with a congress that has 
had a hostile balance of power against him, has been doing pretty 
well. 

“When I have a hired man on my farm who attends to business 
and gets results, I don’t get rid of him. I keep him on the job. 
I encourage him and sometimes I even pay him more money. I 
think Calvin Coolidge is a pretty good hired man to keep in Wash¬ 
ington. And I think Charles Dawes will be willing, to work his 
head ofif for results. He’s that kind of a man. They are going 
to make a good team, as we say on our farms. For one thing, 
they will pull together, which John Davis and Charles Bryan can 
hardly be expected to do, for one may want to go up Wall street 
and the other up Main street. 

“I guess that’s all I have to say. I thank your chairman for not 
calling me down, for I may have spoken too long. But I may 
never be here again. Keep Coolidge in Washington and add Dawes 
to him and we’ll come out with more money in the banks and more 
happiness in our hearts than we have ever had. 

“We are told that God is not mocked, and let us not be de¬ 
ceived in this election.” 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


31 


CHAPTER XIII 
Dorothy Makes a Speech 

“I see that you all agree with me that Hezekiah Smith has made 
a good speech,” said Mr. Miller, while the applause still lingered. 
“I am now going to ask Mrs. Dorothy Watson to tell you some¬ 
thing about the Washington end of this political year.” 

When Dorothy arose her face was like her hair, in some con¬ 
fusion. But face and hair were both very becoming for they were 
finely feminine. 

“I was told that I would be called upon,” she said, smiling, “and 
so I committed a few of my thoughts to paper. In preparing 
these notes, let me explain, I may have made the mistake of 
assuming that you would all be republicans, and if there are any 
here who are not such, I hope I shall not offend them, or hurt their 
feelings.” 

“I guess I’m the only democrat here,” spoke up Jerry Jones, 
“and you needn’t mind me, for after they tied a populist tail to a 
plutocratic kite in New York I don’t care much whether she flies 
or not.” 

“Thank you,” said Dorothy, smiling again. “I’m not going to 
say anything about your kite or its tail. I’m just going to tell you 
something about our own candidates. I have lived two years in 
Washington, but I still feel more at home here in the middle west, 
for I was born here. In Washington, I occasionally meet promi¬ 
nent men, by reason of my husband’s position . . .” 

“And his nerve,” suggested Watson. 

“By reason of his position,” Dorothy repeated, “I meet many 
prominent men. I have met Mr. Coolidge and I know Mrs. 
Coolidge better. When you meet Mr. Coolidge you know you are 
in the presence of a sincere and earnest man. The feeling comes 
to you that in the care of such a man your country is in safe hands. 
He is a man of few words. But he is not silent. He does not 
make many promises. But he is rich in performances. He is a 
good politician for the very reason that he refuses to think merely 
politically. 

“No man as president has been more courageous, or daring. 
He has the courage of his convictions and he always dares to do 
what he believes to be right. I think that is why we women like 
him. We like a man we can respect; one we can look up to; a man 
who dares to be right. 


32 


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“I think the women of America have found in Mr. Coolidge 
that something which I may call the soul of America. It is not 
exactly an idealism, although it is that too. But it is also some¬ 
thing more practical. It embraces a sense of moral duty. His 
leadership is essentially more moral than political. It is deep rooted 
in the great traditions of American history, and that is what we 
most need now. 

“Of Mrs. Coolidge I feel like saying that of all the women I have 
met in public life I would choose her for the wife of a president. 
To me she is an ideal American woman, a wife and mother. Like 
her husband, she came up from what I may call the ranks. As a 
teacher she was a self-supporting woman. Her present exalted 
position has in no manner changed her relations to her fellow 
beings. There is no pride of place in her, except the pride of well 
seeming and well doing. The Coolidges live in the White House 
even as you and I live in our humbler homes. They are just ‘folks’ 
and always American. 

“I have met Mr. Dawes, but I do not know him so well. He has 
always seemed such a busy man. He has had to be a busy man 
for he has done three of the biggest things that have been done in 
the world recently. 

“When the American army was somewhat marooned and almost 
mired in France, General Pershing asked that Charles G. Dawes, 
whom he had known in Lincoln, Nebraska, be sent to help him. 
As purchasing agent and director of supplies, Mr. Dawes did 
wonders there. He did things and he got things done. He went 
after results and got them. 

“In 1921, to reduce the wastes and extravagances of the govern¬ 
ment, congress passed the budget law. President Harding sought 
a man big enough to administer it. He remembered Dawes in 
France and made him the director of the budget. Mr. Dawes liter¬ 
ally made the office and made it effective. He made a straight and 
honest path through a jungle of governmental waste and extrava¬ 
gance. He cleared the.way for debt reductions and tax reductions. 
He did a big thing in a big way. 

“The third big thing he did, and it is quite the biggest, for it is 
of world significance, has just been completed. Five years after 
the war, Europe was still in a morass, with France in the Ruhr, 
Germany in distress, and the rest in doubt. Finally, a commission 
was created to try to solve this riddle of the world. Charles G. 
Dawes was made a member of that commission. He was so potent 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


33 


on it that it became known as the Dawes commission, and the pro¬ 
posed settlement as the Dawes plan. 

“What ambassadorial councils and leagues of nations could not 
solve was solved by this commission. Both France and Germany 
have just signed the pact. To the world it means peace in what 
has been a distracted Europe, and for America it means a new 
place in world affairs as well as reopening markets. 

“Do you not want that kind of a doing-man to be the aid of 
President Coolidge in Washington, and to help give direction and 
purpose to American affairs ? 

“With such a captain and such a mate in Washington, who shall 
say it will not be well with our country? 

“And now, I have said enough. I am going to thank you for 
listening to me, and sit down.” 


CHAPTER XIV 

Jerry Jones Speaks Out oe Order 

“Hold on there!” shouted Jerry Jones, getting on his feet, when 
Mr. Miller was about to introduce the next speaker. 

The applause was renewed and redoubled as a greeting to a man 
who looked so dreadfully in earnest. 

“You may think you’re running this show,” he said, almost 
shaking his fist at Mr. Miller, “but I’m going to show you I can 
put something in it that is not on your card.” 

“Go on and do it,” said Mr. Miller. “If I had known that you 
wanted to speak I would have called on you.” 

“I didn’t want to speak,” said Jerry Jones, “until the lady that’s 
just spoken said she was afraid of hurting my feelings, being what 
looks like the only democrat here. I want to tell her she hasn’t hurt 
my feelings, nary a bit. I know a lady when I hear her speak, and 
she who has just spoken is a lady all right enough. I have heard 
her husband too, but I want to tell him that to her he isn’t one, 
two, three.” 

“What’s the use of telling me what I already know ?” spoke up 
Watson, in a sort of self-defense. 

“Well, I’m telling you, even if you think you know it already,” 
said Jerry Jones. “Some of you smart fellows need to have the 
truth rubbed into you. 

“You all know me. I’m the man who runs the garage at the 


34 


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Lake, where a gang of tired loafers come to talk politics and 
weather and crops and prices while I work. They call my garage 
their club. But I pay the rent. There’s lots of these talking fellers 
for whom some one else pays the rent. I see all these club loafers 
are here tonight. I watched them while the eating was under way. 
I didn’t notice they were a bit tired then. They never are tired 
with their mouths, whether it’s eating or talking.” 

“Hit ’em again,” shouted Watson this time. 

“I told you a while ago that I’m a democrat. Well, I’m that 
still, I’m telling you. I was born that way, and when I’m dead you 
can put a board at my head, or at my feet, for all I care, and paint 
on it, ‘here lies a democrat.’ 

“With me politics is not a disease that you catch like the measles 
or smallpox. Some men nowadays get their politics like they used 
to get their religion, at some revival meeting. They are excited 
for a while, and then they aint. They’re the fellows who follow 
every Will-o’-the-wisp. But those Willies, I’m telling you, never 
get you anything or get you anywhere. 

“I like a man who’s something in politics, either one thing or 
another, and not just nothing. I mean a democrat or republican, 
and I put democrat first because that’s the best thing to be, in my 
opinion, and without offense to the lady that’s just spoken so finely. 
A democrat or republican stands for something. He’s got some¬ 
thing both behind him and before him. He’s not just a straw 
showing which way the wind is blowing. He’s like a man who 
puts up the collateral in the bank where he borrows the money. 
It’s not just a promissory note he puts up, with the promiser, may 
be, going away over night. That’s what men without a party are 
like. They’re just trying to get theirs without putting anything up. 
But where do you who follow them get yours? It’s yours you 
want, not their’s. 

“Just now there are a lot of these fellows running around with¬ 
out a party, and they’ve started one of them, Senator La Follette, 
running for president, 'without no party, and without no name for 
it anyway. They’re going to name it after the^y get through with 
it. I guess they can’t find a real name for their party because they 
don’t know who’s the real father of it. I guess also that if they’d 
hunt far enough they’d find the real father is a socialist or an I. 
W. W., what we call the ‘wobblies.’ I notice Mr. La Follette has 
been trying to shoo away the redder communists, but some of them 
have a part in it all right enough, as you’ll find out. 

“The lady that’s just spoke said something about right. It’s all 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


35 


right to be right, as she says Mr. Coolidge is. But if I couldn’t be 
right, I’d still be something and not just simply nothing, as I have 
said. 

“I was a soldier once, that I was. And this country looked 
mighty good to me, coming back from Cuba. If some of those 
fellows that are always kicking about their own country, would 
get out of it for a while they’d be mighty glad to get back in again 
and they might quit kicking, but maybe not, for they are always 
that way. 

“Well, what I was going to say was that when I was soldiering 
I liked the men who fought on one side or the other, and I hated 
those who foraged between the lines. Foraging between the lines, 
that isn’t soldiering, and it isn’t politics, at least not that’s decent. 
That kind of soldiers and politicians try to play both ends while 
staying safe in the middle, where the loot may be. 

“That isn’t playing the game fair and I’m not for anything that 
isn’t fair. Some of these fellows that’s now going to save the 
country, to hear them tell it, didn’t do much of the saving when 
there was a war on. Some of them were mixed up with the wob- 
blies out west, and some of us didn’t think much of La Follette at 
that time. I didn’t like what they did at that time for I had a son 
in the war, and so did some of you, and no Teddy came along to 
take all the hills in France as the old Teddy did in Cuba. 

“Of course, Charley Dawes may have pulled the army out of 
the mire in France, as the lady has told us about. I guess he did 
something over there, and I’m not for taking away any credit from 
any man for doing anything even if he is now a republican candi¬ 
date for vice president, what another Charley is for us democrats. 

“But, maybe I’m getting nowhere with this talk. Well, I didn’t 
want to say anything anyhow except that I liked the lady’s speech 
and that she didn’t hurt my feelings, not a nary bit. 

“But now that I’m up I want to say also that I want this coun¬ 
try to go either democrat or republican, and I still put democrat 
first, you see. If you’re going to elect Coolidge and Dawes, as you 
seem to think you are, I want you to give them a republican con¬ 
gress back of them, real republicans and not the kind that are like 
silk purses made of sows’ ears. You’ve got to back a man up. 
In Washington you can’t just go rambling around as I have heard 
them do in jazz. To back a man up right, that’s just horse sense. 
And if there were any horses left they’d laugh at those fellows 
that go jazzing around in politics. But horses is going out and so 
is horse sense, at least in politics, so it seems. 


36 


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“And one thing more I want to tell you. I’m no farmer, dirt 
nor nothing. I came from labor and I still hold a union card and 
am proud of it. I was juggled out when there was four million 
idle, and then I bought my garage, where I repair cars and do it 
right and at right prices. If you don’t believe it, try me. 

“But I don’t want no labor party and I don’t want no farm 
party. Give me a U. S. A. party, like the democrats and repub¬ 
licans. I’m for the whole country. If I couldn’t be a democrat, 
I’d be a republican, and not just a little red herring of some kind. 
And these political herrings are reddish, all right, even if they think 
they are only pinkish. Or if they’re not red yet, they will be when 
they’re in. 

“No, ladies and gentlemen, I’m strong for the U. S. A. stuff. 
That’s what counts with me. 

“And now I’m thinking of something else. Some of the Willies 
and the Wobblies talk about big business as if they’s afraid of it. 
They’re going to relieve you of it. But not with my vote. For 
one, I like to see business run big, the bigger the better. When it 
runs that way we all get something, and when it don’t we all get 
nothing, except soup in the streets, and I’ve eaten of that too. 
When business runs big I get plenty to do and get paid for it. And 
you get something bigger for everything you raise on your farms. 
Instead of murdering big business, I’m for doctoring it up to make 
it stronger that way. Those naggers of big business, keep away 
from them. If you were a waiter they’re the kind of fellows that 
wouldn’t give you even a tip. They don’t sign no pay checks 
that I have ever seen. They just worry those who do sign that 
kind of checks. 

“And some of those that never did nothing for themselves want 
the government to do everything for them. I want to say some¬ 
thing about them too. They want the government to take the rail¬ 
roads over and operate them again. After while they may want 
the government to take over your farms, for I have read that 
agriculture is a basic industry and it’s the basic industries they want 
the government to run. 

“Well, the government tried to run the railroads once. The tax 
payers aint through paying for it yet and no one has heard about 
the freight rates they put up being down yet. But the politicians, 
what do they care, they don’t pay any taxes and they let Jones pay 
the freight — and I’m one of the Joneses. 

“Charley Bryan’s for some of that stuff too, and that’s what I 
don’t like about him. Our Charley has a lot of notions that don’t 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 37 

just suit me. He goes a sort of rambling around like they do in 
that jazz. 

“No, fellows, and ladies too, before you vote to turn the rail¬ 
roads over to the politicians again, I’m thinking it would be better 
to buy up all the peanut stands and let the politicians run them to 
show us what they can do with them. But maybe it’s asking too 
much to let peanut politicians do even that much — but we could 
find that out, and it’s better that way than trying it on the rail¬ 
roads again. 

“Now I’m about ready to quit. But one thing more and that is, 
that we don’t want to throw any more monkey wrenches into either 
big business or little business, and least of all in the government’s 
business. Let’s quit fooling and quit rambling around. Let’s go 
right straight ahead and right straight through, as Hezekiah has 
told us about, or was it Mr. Miller? 

“Let’s quit looking for the millennium, whatever that is, and let’s 
be sure we get something to eat and get it all the time, even if it 
can’t be as good as what we’ve had here tonight, thanks to the 
ladies. 

“Keep on the main 1 road, but if by mistake you should follow 
some rambling Wobbly off on a side road and get into the mire, 
send for Jerry Jones, the garage man, and he’ll pull you out, even 
if you have been damn fools for getting in, and even if Jerry can’t 
do it as Charley Dawes pulled Pershing out of the mire in France, 
as the lady has told us about. 

“I noticed that the lady said thank you for listening to her. I 
guess that must be good manners, for she has the good manners all 
right, and so I’m going to say thank you too and quit and sit 
down.” 


CHAPTER XV 
The Tale oe Conspiracy 

“Jerry, that is the first and best speech I ever heard you make,” 
said Mr. Miller, while the applause that had followed it was dying 
down. 

But it was in vain that Mr. Miller tried to introduce the next 
speaker. They were all talking and laughing over what Jerry 
Jones had told them in his picturesque and brusque way. Every 
one knew it was the truth. 

“Who is the real father of this party without a name, anyway?” 
asked the chubby man. 


38 


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“It has a whole bloc of fathers/’ suggested Watson, “and every 
little bloc has a movement as well as meaning of its own, and has 
some grievance or wants something.” 

“Then it must be a little blockhead,” said one man. 

“On the contrary,” said Watson, “it is full of cunning and it’s 
the cunning of it that makes it dangerous.” 

“But they can not make it win?” said the cynic. 

“They don’t expect to win,” said Watson. “They are not that 
foolish. All that they are hoping for is to keep the others from 
winning. What they are working for is a minority that can hold 
the balance of power between the two big parties and then dictate 
or destroy.” 

“How can they do that?” asked Mr. Miller. 

“It looks easy —to them,” said Watson. “Presidents and vice 
presidents are elected in the electoral college. In this college each 
state has as many votes as it has senators and representatives in 
congress, making 531 in all. Election is by a majority. A major¬ 
ity is 266. Suppose now they carried only Wisconsin, with its 13 
votes in the electoral college, and of the other 518 votes in the col¬ 
lege, the republicans had 259 and the democrats 259. Then neither 
the republicans nor democrats could elect a president and vice 
president and the election would be thrown into the congress.” 

“But if they carried more than Wisconsin?” 

“Then they would be all the more sure of throwing the election 
into the congress,” said Watson. 

“You mean a handful of politicians could dictate to the whole 
country,” said the cynic. 

“That’s what they are aiming to do,” Watson told him. “That’s 
what a minority did in Russia, and the Russian soviet is in many 
ways their model.” 

“And what would happen in the house?” 

“The house of representatives as now made up could not elect 
a president,” said Watson. “When the house votes on president, 
each state has one vote and that vote is determined by the members 
of congress from the state. There are 48 states and it would take 
25 such votes to elect. Twenty-three states now have republican 
majorities in the house and that includes Wisocnsin; 20 are dem¬ 
ocratic and five are tied between the two parties and could not 
agree upon casting a vote. That means the house could not elect 
a president.” 

“Then what?” sighed Mr. Miller. 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


39 


“In the meantime,” said Watson, “the senate would be balloting 
for a vice president, which must be one of the two receiving the 
highest number of votes in the electoral college for that office. That, 
of course, would be either Mr. Dawes or Mr. Bryan. The senate 
as now made up has 51 nominally republicans, 43 democrats, and 
two farm-laborites, Johnson and Shipstead of Minnesota. But 
the 51 nominally republicans include Mr. Ea Follette, himself, who, 
of course is not a republican and would not vote with them. It is 
to be feared there would be at least two or more others nominally 
republicans who would not vote, or might not vote with their party. 
That would mean that the republicans would not have the necessary 
49 votes to elect Mr. Dawes vice president.” 

“Then they would have to elect Mr. Bryan ?” 

“If it wasn’t Mr. Dawes,” said Watson, “it would have to be 
Mr. Bryan, if there is an election at all. And I believe the La 
Follette men would make Mr. Bryan president, for they could get 
more from him than from Mr. Dawes. That is, they could control 
Mr. Bryan more than Mr. Dawes and it is minority control and 
dictation they are aiming at.” 

“And if they would vote for neither Mr. Dawes nor Mr. Bryan, 
then we would be without a president?” asked Mr. Miller. 

“That’s exactly it,” said Watson. 

“It’s a terrible predicament,” said the chubby man. 

“But the predicament need not arise,” Watson told him. “The 
conspiracy of the minority can easily be frustrated. All that is 
necessary is for the people at the polls in the coming election to 
express themselves vigorously with their ballots. The best and 
surest way to make that expression is to vote for Coolidge and 
Dawes, who are in the best position to win the victory.” 


CHAPTER XVI 
The Red Fringe oe Russia 

Mr. Miller himself had no thought of going on with the speeches. 
The auditors hacl, many of them, left their seats and stood crowded 
around Mr. Watson, as if eager to hear more of what he had called 
the conspiracy of a minority and their designs on the control of 
the government. 

“You have referred repeatedly to Russia,” said Mr. Miller, “just 
why do you do that ?” 


40 


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“I have done it advisedly,” answered Watson. '‘To me it is 
something real and impending. Russia and its red soviet confronts 
the whole world.” 

“And what do you mean by that ?” 

“I mean,” said Watson, “that just now there are only two work¬ 
ing models of government left in the world. One of them is the 
soviet of Russia, and the other is the republic of America. Both 
are taken to be governments of the people. In Russia we see an 
incoherent mass living under the dictations and in the dread of 
life and property of a minority that is cunning and resourceful in 
the expedients of terror. There they have no elections and no 
free press. The men in control seized the government and they 
have never made an appeal for authority to the people. They have 
thrown out God and they have deified Lenin, whose embalmed body 
imbedded in red plush is now publicly exhibited.” 

“That’s a true Russian picture,” said Mr. Miller. 

“In the United States of America we still have a true representa¬ 
tive government,” Watson went on. “A government in which a 
majority will register their will in the coming elections and where 
a responsible government will , be carried on at the will of that 
majority. We are a free people with a free press. We have a con¬ 
gress elected by the people to make laws, a supreme court to inter¬ 
pret the laws, and a president to enforce them, each with checks 
upon the other, to safeguard the rights of the people and to main¬ 
tain the integrity of the government; three coordinate branches of 
the government, each supreme in its own functions, but none 
supreme, that is, absolute over the whole people.” 

“And that’s a true American picture,” said Mr. Miller. 

“At the present time all the governments are in a state of flux,” 
said Watson. “They will be re-shaped on either the Russian or 
the American model. Mussolini temporarily saved Italy from 
sovietism by establishing a sort of beneficent dictatorship. Ger¬ 
many has been on the brink, and England, the old oak-ribbed Eng¬ 
land, has been hovering betwixt and between. 

“And which way is the trend now ?” asked one eager man. 

“The trend is Americaward,” said Watson. “The settlement 
just effected in Europe is the greatest step in the right direction 
that has been registered since the World War. An American out¬ 
lined that plan and gave it potency. That American is Charles G. 
Dawes. By a happy circumstance of politics he is now one of our 
candidates in the pending election. I believe that the plan which 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 41 

is called the Dawes plan has saved Europe from the Russian 
debacle.” 

“Then Russia is out of it, you think?” asked Mr. Miller. 

“No, not out of it yet,” said Watson. “The Soviets will not give 
up without a further struggle. They are sending out more emis¬ 
saries to stir up strife and to plot revolutions. They are especially 
bitter against America, for America has stood in their way.” 

“But they are not trying to influence our elections, are they?” 
asked the cynic. 

“Not directly,” said Watson. “But if they could still pray over 
there they would not be praying for Coolidge and Dawes, or Davis 
and Bryan, but for La Follette and Wheeler. They know their 
sympathizers are all back of the third party movement. They know 
Debs over there and Debs is backing the La Follette-Wheeler 
ticket, and so are Berger and Hilquitt.” 

“And Burton K. Wheeler?” asked Mr. Miller. 

“Yes, they know him too,” said Watson. “A year ago Mr. 
Wheeler, now candidate for vice president, traveled in Russia as 
a sort of official guest of the soviet. He came back praising their 
government, almost above that of his own country. He has all the 
radicals, the I. W. W., the pink socialists, and the red communists 
trailing after him. They know him and he knows them.” 

“And La Follette, he’s socialistic, isn’t he?” asked Mr. Miller. 

“That he is a socialist outright is the testimony of Victor Berger, 
who knows him in his own Wisconsin. Let me quote what Berger 
said of him, recently, when the socialistic party endorsed his can¬ 
didacy. ‘La Follette,’ said Berger, ‘is a socialist in everything 
except name. He has been so for twenty years. He hasn’t voted 
the republican ticket since 1904. There’s no reason why he can’t 
be our candidate.’ That is what Victor Berger told his fellow 
socialists about La Follette, and upon that assurance they made 
him their candidate.” 

“All this is new revelation to me,” confessed Mr. Miller, “and 
also a new call to duty in this campaign.” 

“If it is not the red fringe of Russia in America, what is it?” 
asked Watson. 

“Well, let’s do our American duty,” said Jerry Jones. “We like 
what red there is in the American flag, but we do not want to make 
it all red.” 

“Under which flag?” said Watson, “that’s the question for every 
voter to answer in November.” 


42 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


CHAPTER XVII 
Rewriting the Constitution 

“If you are all through asking questions,” suggested Mr. Miller, 
“we will proceed with the speeches.” 

“Before you do that,” said one man, “I would like to ask Mr. 
Watson how they would proceed, if they, the La Follette party, 
won.” 

“So soon as they could,” replied Watson, “they would probably 
undertake to rewrite the constitution of the United States. That’s 
basic for them. They want to get rid of the limitations that the 
constitution places on them. They want to run things without 
court interferences.” 

“Have they said they would do so ?” asked Mr. Miller. 

“They promise it in their platform,” replied Watson. “To them 
the constitution is an ancient and outworn document.” 

“And what would they change about it ?” 

“What might they leave unchanged about it?” asked Watson 
in reply. “They will begin, no doubt, on the sections creating 
and defining the supreme court. That court stands in the way 
of these socialistic reformers. It is a check and they do not want 
checks. They want no one to review their work.” 

“What they complain of,” said Mr. Miller, “as I understand it, 
is the action of the court setting aside acts of congress.” 

“Exactly,” said Watson. “Congress now makes laws. Or 
rather, it passes bills. They become laws when the president has 
signed them, and after that the supreme court can set them aside 
if it finds that they violate the provisions of the constitution. The 
constitution, you know, limits the powers of congress, as it limits 
those of the president. There are certain rights and liberties that 
congress and the president can not abridge. The states also have 
rights and powers that can not be interfered with. The supreme 
court, for one thing, protects individuals and states in these rights 
and so it has been given the power to declare acts unconstitu¬ 
tional.” 

“In other words,” said Mr. Miller, “that court is there to protect 
the people and the states against invasions on their rights and 
powers by what may be rampant legislative bodies.” 

“Exactly that,” said Watson. 

“But how often has the supreme court interfered in such a 
manner?” asked the chubby man. 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 43 

“In 140 years it has set aside only 147 acts of congress,” 
replied Watson. 

“It isn’t enough,” suggested Mr. Miller. “The court ought to 
be impeached for not setting aside more.” 

“That is what a congressman told me,” Watson said. “Con¬ 
gress often acts hastily or under undue pressure. It is often 
responsive to temporary public clamor. The five hundred and 
thirty-one men in the two houses can not always act deliberately. 
It is in every way proper that a supreme court composed of nine 
men who understand the law and the constitution should have the 
power of reviewing their work and setting aside their acts, and 
without such power we might soon have a mass of conflicting laws 
and general chaos.” 

“I should think so,” said Mr. Miller. 

“I may add also,” Watson went on, “that in only nine of the 
147 cases did the supreme court act through a mere majority 
opinion, that is, by a five to four vote of the judges.” 

“If the republicans are wise,” said Mr. Miller, “they may well 
make the slogan, ‘Save the supreme court,’ their chief rallying 
cry.” 

“It is not only the court,” said Watson, “but the rights of the 
people that we want to save. Under the La Follette proposals, the 
country would be turned over to congress. We all know enough 
about congress that in a time of unrest the radicals and extremists 
might elect enough of their kind to upturn the government itself. 
Freedom of speech and of religion,’ property rights, trial by jury 
and all the rest of the rights now guaranteed to the people by the 
constitution might be swept aside.” 

“It is a dangerous experiment they propose,” said the chubby 
man. 

“It is more than dangerous,” said Watson. “It is revolutionary. 
It is socialistic in the extreme. It is preparing the way to change 
the whole system and structure of the American government. It 
might and it would reduce America to what they now have in 
Russia.” 

“The American people will never consent to such proposals,” 
declared Mr.TMiller. 

“Let us hope they will not,” said Watson. “And let us in this 
election make the verdict so strong that it will be final.” 


44 


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CHAPTER XVIII 
Watson Makes a Speech 

After many interruptions, Mr. Miller was at last able to present 
the guest of the evening, “Clarence Watson, newspaper writer 
and lecturer. ,, 

“Whenever I travel in what is called the Middle West, the lands 
of the Mississippi and Missouri,” Watson began, “I think of the 
old Hebrew conception of an earthly paradise, a land flowing with 
milk and honey. 

“You have everything here that the world needs as food, and the 
world needs everything you can produce. Some years you may 
seem to have too much of everything, but such problems, I believe, 
you can solve by orderly and, perhaps, cooperative marketing, and 
through the development of new industries. 

“But population is increasing, and rest assured that land that 
will produce wheat and corn, and milk and honey will have a perm¬ 
anent and high value. It will never produce too much. There is 
more fear that it may not produce enough to feed the world. 

“In these fertile valleys of the two great rivers, in this land of 
plenty, I realize you have passed through some hardships. Often 
you thought of yourselves as the only sufferers or as those who 
suffered most in the deflations and demoralizations that followed 
the war. You had your share of the hardships to bear, but re¬ 
member that others also suffered, and some more than you, for .at 
least you always had enough to eat. 

“In your times of affliction, as has been said by others tonight, 
you received many would-be counsellors. The politicians came 
also. They go about like Satan, described in the book of Job. 
They promised you new laws for old evils. They had hasty cure- 
alls without limit. 

“But do not believe all they promise you, and do not rely too 
much on mere laws. Some laws may help you, and others may 
only hinder you. Temporary legislative stimulations sometimes are 
no better than intoxications that are followed by suffering and re¬ 
morse. Material salvation, like a spiritual salvation, is something 
that must be worked out. It can not be legislated in. Good laws 
are those that help you do that work under the fairest human con¬ 
ditions possible. 

“But these facts have been so often stated that I will not under¬ 
take to re-state them now. Our friend, Jerry Jones, has already 
warned you against following Will-o’-the-wisps in politics, and our 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


45 


venerable mentor, Mark Miller, has invoked the patience and the 
faith of Job through which he won back all that he had lost. 

“I rejoice with you over the fact that you too seem to be getting 
back some of the things that have been lacking. The higher prices 
which you are now receiving for your products are not prices po¬ 
litically or financially manipulated, but they are based on world 
needs and movements. I belong to those who have to pay you 
these higher prices for our food. But we are willing to pay 
enough for our foods to enable you to produce them with a profit 
on your lands and out of your labor. That much the world owes 
you at all times. 

“As an observer and commentator in Washington, I want to as¬ 
sure you that your government has at all times given diligent con¬ 
sideration not only to your problems but to all the problems of all 
the people. And in passing judgment none of us must think only 
of himself, unless it be of himself as a part of the whole people and 
the whole country. The national viewpoint is something that we 
must get back and that we must cherish. 

“When what we call the Harding-Coolidge administration came 
into power conditions were chaotic. A nation wide deflation was 
under way. This began in the spring of 1920, almost a year be¬ 
fore the 4th of March, 1921, when Mr. Harding was inducted into 
office. It would be unfair to say it was a deflation that the repub¬ 
licans inherited from the democrats. It was rather an inflation 
that the country inherited from the World War. I see nothing 
gained by the one blaming the other. In politics we should invoke 
fewer prejudices and seek more ardently to do those things that 
are right and just. 

“But the country was in dire distress when Mr. Harding faced 
his national duties. The prices of products were down and still 
going down, and in the cities four or five million men were out of 
work and wages. 

“President Harding called congress together and suggested pro¬ 
cedures to set the'country right. In rapid succession the congress 
passed what were called emergency bills. One was an emergency 
tariff bill to stop the flood of foreign goods under the then existing 
low tariff of the Wilson administration. The object was to let 
American labor be employed. Another was an emergency immi¬ 
gration bill, restricting the inflow of those who were coming to us 
from war afflicted Europe, adding only to our own unemployed 
population. The War Finance Corporation was revived to put 
money back into the rural sections of the country to save the 


46 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


banks of the people from bankruptcies and to enable them to carry 
those who had become indebted to them, many of whom, if not 
most, were farmers. 

“It was found that the debts and taxes of the war were heavy 
on the people. We were still collecting five and a half billions in 
taxes. Reductions in these burdens were imperative. The con¬ 
gress enacted a budget bill under which the expenditures of the 
government could be systematized and reduced. President Hard¬ 
ing called on Mr. Charles G. Dawes to administer this new law. 
He called a big man to do a big work. 

“Now as to the results: 

“By autumn of that year, 1921, enough progress had been made 
to attract national attention. On the farms prices had gone up 
gradually and there was rejoicing when the price of corn again 
crossed 50 cents a bushel, and I use corn as simply typical, for 
corn even more than wheat has become in recent years a sort of 
market indicator. 

“In the cities men were returning to work and by the spring of 
1922 all the millions who had been idle were again earning wages, 
and they were undiminished wages. 

“Under the budget system, the expenditures of the government 
were steadily reduced. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1924, 
the appropriations were only $3,497,000,000, as compared with 
$5,538,000,000 the year before. 

“Taxes paid by the people were reduced in like amounts, or 
nearly so. The republican congress in the summer of 1921 enacted 
a tax reduction law which reduced federal taxes approximately a 
billion dollars a year. Finding we had a surplus on hand, the last 
session of congress lopped off $232,750,000 more in the form of a 
25 per cent horizontal reduction in income taxes. In all, the tax 
reductions now amount to about $1,250,000,000 a year. 

“But in spite of these reductions in taxes, we have been reduc¬ 
ing the national debt. The reductions in this debt, since the 4th 
of March, 1921, when the Harding-Coolidge administration began, 
have totaled $3,070,442,686, and we still have a surplus in the 
treasury. 

“Such is the record and such are the achievements of the three 
years and five months of the Harding-Coolidge administration and 
the man who is now carrying the great burden of the presidency 
is not permitting even a political campaign, in which he is a candi¬ 
date for reelection, to interrupt his service to the people and the 


BACK TO FOUR CORNERS 


47 


nation. He is placing his duties and responsibilities above his per¬ 
sonal aspirations. 

“In conclusion, I am going to ask you the simple question, Are 
you going to rebuke with your votes in this election those who have 
served you so well in every way, or, are you going to say to them, 
‘well done, good and faithful servants,’ we will let you serve us 
four years more.” 


CHAPTER XIX 
Mary’s Speech 

“Mary,” said Mr. Miller, after the usual applause that followed 
Mr. Watson’s speech, “I am going to let you have the last word in 
this meeting under our ancestral trees.” 

“I have been wondering,” began Mary, somewhat timidly, 
“whether we have not been putting too much stress on merely ma¬ 
terial things. In nearly all the animated conversations which I 
have overheard here, and in all the speeches that have been made, 
you have talked of prices and products, of profits and prosperity. 
Under which political party can we make the most money? 

“Has this beautiful flag of ours that is now touched by the fad¬ 
ing sunlight under these trees become the symbol of property only? 
Are prices and profits the proper measure of all the things we en¬ 
joy under this flag? 

“I know such things are important and necessary. But I am 
just wondering if there are not other things also that are import¬ 
ant and necessary. Maybe we ought to be thinking and talking of 
morals as well as of money, and of spiritual things as well as of 
material ones. You know it was said long ago that man shall not 
live by bread alone. Sometimes I fear that we are making that 
mistake. As a nation are we not more prosperous than we are 
righteous? In always seeking more prosperity may we not be 
losing that righteousness which exalteth nations? 

“When I was helping nurse back to life and health many of the 
boys who had offered all they had on the altars of their country, I 
used to dream of a world made better by their sufferings and their 
sacrifices. Ilmust confess that often since I have felt disappointed. 
My dreams and your dreams have not all been realized, and some 
have been shattered. So many of the old things have come back, 
and so many of the new ones have gone away again. I do not 
know just how to express myself, but I hope you understand what 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

BACK TO FOUR C 

“Maybe you are wiser, or at least mo 
you may be thinking that I am talking < 0 000 205 749 9 

jam a woman, a wife and a mother, cl 1V1 kl 1UOV-- 

things that are best in a woman’s life. But we women have what 
you men call a stake in this nation, and now we have a part to play 
which I hope no woman will neglect. 

“A man, a mere man, asked me the other day why so many wo¬ 
men seemed so deeply interested in Mr. Coolidge. I told him it 
was because we have found somewhere and somehow in him, in 
his utterances or in his actions, an expression of the moral and 
spiritual values of America. To me, I must confess, he stands 
for so many of the things which we have always associated with 
America, the America of our fathers and the America that we 
covet for our children. We do not want some other kind of 
America, one made over into the image of those who were not 
born of the spirit of our nation. 

“Oh, friends, let us keep America American. Let us not per¬ 
mit anyone to make it over into something else and something less. 
Let it not be submerged in foreign propaganda, nor sunk in do¬ 
mestic greed. 

“If there is aught wrong with America is it not of our own minds 
and hearts? There is abundant material health in it. Let us put 
into it,also moral and spiritual health. I sometimes fear we are 
almost too well off, and you know there was once a man who 
waxed fat and kicked. 

“When I think of these things I feel like thanking God for Cal¬ 
vin Coolidge, for to me he seems the one man best fitted in his 
leadership to bring us back into harmony with the America that 
we have loved even unto this day and that we want to maintain 
and perpetuate as unsullied as the flag that floats over us.” 

The approval that followed Mary’s speech was even more of 
the heart than of the hand. 

“Friends,” said Mr. Miller, “I shall not seek to add any words 
to those that Mary has spoken — they are the best words and they 
have expressed the best thoughts for us to take home with us to¬ 
night. . . . So, in conclusion of our meeting, let us sing, 

‘My country ’tis of thee, 

Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing. . . 

“That’s all,” said Mr. Miller, when that was sung. “God bless 
you all, and God bless our country.” 








































